An aspect of each person’s clarification of “their individual project” involves a personal claiming of “their stuff.” That is, a claiming of the “raw spot” inherent in their own psychology, the place of vulnerability, the place they struggle to cope, and a recognition of some of the emotional costs to themselves and others that ushers from this place of inner difficulty.
Typically, it is very difficult for partners in a struggling marriage to open up and candidly claim these places of inner difficulty, without first reliably bringing down the couples negative cycle, and having established a modicum of emotional safety in the marriage. The propensity towards mutual shaming and projective blaming makes such levels of self-claiming too unsafe for most couples. However, once the couple learns to reliably circumvent the negative cycle, each partners ability to claim their inner difficulties/struggles/raw spots, greatly enhances the feeling of growing safety and intimacy in the the marriage. Each partner is reassured by the knowledge that their partner is going to be dealing with the parts of themselves that make the marriage harder. And intimacy within the marriage is much increase by the vulnerable sharing about these places of inner difficulty.
